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- Chill Out Room
-- *: * So* Much * Random * Talking * Here :* ~Episode III
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quote:

Originally posted by Sushipunk b) Seeing a Downs Syndrome guy go off the handle and trash a bunch of clothing racks in Myers, while screaming his head off about something

Outrageous retail prices bring out the full retard in everyone, that's usually why they go to Target instead of Myers.

quote:

Originally posted by Lilith Outrageous retail prices bring out the full retard in everyone, that's usually why they go to Target instead of Myers.

I bought a bunch of plates and bowls from Target today, they're quite nice

Was still entertaining though

Oh I bet, people losing it in public places is fantastic (unless its Colorado or Norway), a few years ago I saw a hyperactive kid go careening around an appliance section while his fat chunk of a mother was wheezing at him to slow down.
In most retail stores, somewhere near appliance will be kitchenware.
Runs into a stack of boxed dinner sets... bam, whole lot goes over

Moved my post to the right thread...

quote:

Originally posted by Lira God damn hippies and their laws protecting the stupid! If someone's stupid enough to share a road with a drunk driver, it's their fault if they get killed! If someone's stupid enough not to prevent a robbery with intelligence and wit, and have all their valuable goods stolen because they didn't keep everything in a safe-house, so much the worse for them!

Seems like you failed to understand what I'm saying. It's "God damn hippies and their laws protecting the stupid from themselves!". The drunk driver and the robber are two entirely different things.
An example of a typical hippie law is the seatbelt law. People are only putting their own life's at danger. Yet there needs to be a law that forbids this. You are not gives responsibility for your own doings. Yes, I realize this law has saved many people from injury or death, and removing it would have "bad" consequences. Still, in my understanding of the government this should not be. I demand the fucking freedom to risk my life whenever I want. I value that freedom higher than a bunch of people dying because they made a bad decision. Everyone should be allowed to make bad decisions. Yet the god damned hippies make a new law whenever something doesn't fit with their idealistic world view. It's not the government's job to force citizens to make the "right" decisions. It's the government's job to let people make their own decisions.
Now hippie off, Lira. The world will never be the cheerful pink paradise you want it to be, where everyone lives happily together and Para Para is playing all the time. And stop demanding a new law to fix things whenever your illusions collide with the harsh reality.

Edit: Am I being Ayn Rand-ish here? I never read her shit but someone once told me I would find many of my views there.

If the government has the obligation to care for people when they cannot afford medical help -- which it does in many countries -- then it only makes sense that it should also have the power to regulate certain things (seat belt use, for example) so that medical costs will be minimized. You might say that people who cannot afford life-saving medicine should simply be left to die, or that they should rely on private charity (which is pretty much a less harsh way of saying the former); but if you do not take that view, then it makes little sense to object to public safety laws.

quote:

Originally posted by Meat187 Seems like you failed to understand what I'm saying. It's "God damn hippies and their laws protecting the stupid from themselves!". The drunk driver and the robber are two entirely different things. An example of a typical hippie law is the seatbelt law. People are only putting their own life's at danger. Yet there needs to be a law that forbids this. You are not gives responsibility for your own doings. Yes, I realize this law has saved many people from injury or death, and removing it would have "bad" consequences. Still, in my understanding of the government this should not be. I demand the fucking freedom to risk my life whenever I want. I value that freedom higher than a bunch of people dying because they made a bad decision. Everyone should be allowed to make bad decisions. Yet the god damned hippies make a new law whenever something doesn't fit with their idealistic world view. It's not the government's job to force citizens to make the "right" decisions. It's the government's job to let people make their own decisions. Now hippie off, Lira. The world will never be the cheerful pink paradise you want it to be, where everyone lives happily together and Para Para is playing all the time. And stop demanding a new law to fix things whenever your illusions collide with the harsh reality. Edit: Am I being Ayn Rand-ish here? I never read her shit but someone once told me I would find many of my views there.

I think you're ignoring some pertinent nuances though. Examine the seat belt issue, for instance. It's not just the person who isn't wearing their seat belt who is affected when they fly out of their windshield in a head-on collision. There are the witnesses who will likely be more psychologically traumatized than they would have been, otherwise. There are the emergency responders - their field subject to an already high turn-over rate - who have to cope with the post-traumatic impact of such aftermaths. There are the spouse and offspring who have to cope with the loss; the life-insurance companies who have to pay benefits; the costs to the public associated with clean-up. You can legislate some of these things, like allowing life-insurance companies to opt out of providing coverage for people who don't wear their seat-belts, but you're still legislating.

You'll be legislating to many of the symptoms of the problem, rather than dealing with the problem in the most efficient manner possible. Mandating that people wear seat-belts is more cost-effective than managing costs for high Emergency Service attrition rates; among the multiplicative and unforeseen consequences of doing otherwise. The whole problem with Rand was that she never really saw past the immediate satisfaction of her proposals to really explore the unintended consequences of them. She couldn't even spot what the real underlying problems were and therefore came to spurious and superficial conclusions about what constituted problems and what their solutions should be.

quote:

Originally posted by EddieZilker The whole problem with Rand was that she never really saw past the immediate satisfaction of her proposals to really explore the unintended consequences of them.

It is not really that she could not see consequences, but that she did not care about them, or at least not to the extent that she would consider cost-benefit analysis relevant to ethical decisions. Most libertarians, Rand included, have a deontological position on ethics.

[And I realize that Rand, in her desire to be thought a unique snowflake in everything she ever wrote or did, never called herself a "libertarian." But phooey on that.]

quote:

Originally posted by Vector A It is not really that she could not see consequences, but that she did not care about them, or at least not to the extent that she would consider cost-benefit analysis relevant to ethical decisions. Most libertarians, Rand included, have a deontological position on ethics. [And I realize that Rand, in her desire to be thought a unique snowflake in everything she ever wrote or did, never called herself a "libertarian." But phooey on that.]

If you were a girl with a Facebook account, I'd poke you.

quote:

Originally posted by Vector A If the government has the obligation to care for people when they cannot afford medical help -- which it does in many countries -- then it only makes sense that it should also have the power to regulate certain things (seat belt use, for example) so that medical costs will be minimized. You might say that people who cannot afford life-saving medicine should simply be left to die, or that they should rely on private charity (which is pretty much a less harsh way of saying the former); but if you do not take that view, then it makes little sense to object to public safety laws.

That doesn't make a lot of sense with respect to the topic. The healthcare system is a completely different can of worms. And if the government derives the right to control people from offering healthcare to those who can't afford it then why would this right extend to those who can afford it as well?

quote:

Originally posted by EddieZilker I think you're ignoring some pertinent nuances though.

You are seriously pointing out psychological trauma as the biggest problem? What a wimpy hippie you are.
The life-insurance companies are a good point because they will pressurize you into using a seat belt. But you still have the choice.

quote:

Originally posted by EddieZilker You'll be legislating to many of the symptoms of the problem, rather than dealing with the problem in the most efficient manner possible.

I didn't say it was the most efficient solution. Or the most trauma minimizing. But it's the solution that fits best with my idea of what a government should and should not do.


Funny thing is that the same hippies that demand these type of rules for everything are also always pissed about how the government is banning their beloved pot.

quote:

Originally posted by Meat187 That doesn't make a lot of sense with respect to the topic. The healthcare system is a completely different can of worms.

Why? If seat belt laws effectively decrease the need for emergency care of people thrown through windshields and stuff, the relationship looks pretty straightforward.

For me it is less about whether the government has "derived a right" than about what is the most rational way of proceeding: to mandate that the government shoulder costs and then deny to it an effective and relatively non-intrusive means of minimizing those costs, or to allow it those means. I am not fond of looking at rights in an absolutist way: for me there are less important and more important rights, and the right not to put on a seat belt in a car does not strike me as a crucial one, when weighed against the potential negatives.

quote:

Originally posted by Meat187 Funny thing is that the same hippies that demand these type of rules for everything are also always pissed about how the government is banning their beloved pot.

I'll punch your face! (Yes, you're right but you hit a little close to home and I'm sorry I lashed out like that.)

I'm actually pointing to high-turnover related to psychological trauma and not the psychological trauma, itself.

Personally, I don't like anti-smoking legislation much. The way it's enacted, in the United States, seems to be targeting the wrong group of people. It proposes that business owners eliminate smoking sections, altogether, instead of allowing business owners to make that decision for themselves.

That, to my mind, is an example of government interference and one that is using negligible evidence to support its validity.


But then according to Wikipedia, I am a consequentialist, for the most part.

quote:

Originally posted by Vector A Why? If seat belt laws effectively decrease the need for emergency care of people thrown through windshields and stuff, the relationship looks pretty straightforward. For me it is less about whether the government has "derived a right" than about what is the most rational way of proceeding: to mandate that the government shoulder costs and then deny to it an effective and relatively non-intrusive means of minimizing those costs, or to allow it those means. I am not fond of looking at rights in an absolutist way: for me there are less important and more important rights, and the right not to put on a seat belt in a car does not strike me as a crucial one, when weighed against the potential negatives.

No, because it comes down to who pays for that care and that's a healthcare discussion. As I said, I don't care about people injuring themselves because they're stupid. Being the asshole I am I'd even let them die. When the relationship looks so straightforward then it will also mean every potentially dangerous activity can and should be forbidden. You got any idea how dangerous it is to change a light bulb? Use a ladder? Or what about the emos like Hal, who cut themselves. Put them in prison right now! Wait, I'm starting to like this idea...
Of course it's a rather unimportant right. That's why it's just an example of what I consider a wrong principle and not something I'm protesting against every day.

quote:

Originally posted by EddieZilker That, to my mind, is an example of government interference and one that is using negligible evidence to support its validity.

Yeah, and I guess everything would indeed be fine if only we could expect our governments to always make the best choice. Sure, I'd have no problem giving them the right to regulate everything when I know they'll make good decisions. Personally, I believe exactly the opposite. Will the naive idealists please raise their hand?

quote:

Originally posted by Meat187 No, because it comes down to who pays for that care and that's a healthcare discussion. As I said, I don't care about people injuring themselves because they're stupid. Being the asshole I am I'd even let them die.

Well, at least you are consistent, then!

quote:

Originally posted by Meat187 Yeah, and I guess everything would indeed be fine if only we could expect our governments to always make the best choice. Sure, I'd have no problem giving them the right to regulate everything when I know they'll make good decisions. Personally, I believe exactly the opposite. Will the naive idealists please raise their hand?

I prefer to think of myself as the articulate, naive idealist with perfectionistic demands.

I had a friend who worked in the Public Relations Department for a small-town city manager's office. They wanted to install rail-rode crossing arms for one of the crossings near the main boulevard. They raised the proposal at a city-council meeting and it got clobbered with protest. A few years later, one of the people who killed it, had their daughter driving to school.

She crossed it and stalled, right on the tracks. The train hit the car but was already stopping before the impact. No one was hurt but that didn't stop the phone calls to the city manager's office, who heard nothing less than an earful from many of the same angry residence who had previously kiboshed his crossing arm proposal, for not having crossing arms installed, in the first place.

Invoking many of the same sorts of arguments you're making - basically, because it costs too much, and if someone gets hurt, oh well - they killed the deal that an emergency city-council meeting was called for, afterwards, to demand explanations as to why crossing arms weren't there, in the first place.


It would seem that hippies aren't the only people who believe in a perfect world.

Government policy that reduces mortality is in the interest of the population only to the extent that mortality is suboptimally high. Currently, mortality is suboptimally low.

quote:

Originally posted by Arbiter Government policy that reduces mortality is in the interest of the population only to the extent that mortality is suboptimally high. Currently, mortality is suboptimally low.

Low by what standard?

quote:

Originally posted by Vector A Low by what standard?

Long-term survivability of the population as a whole.

Well, survival looks like a darn good bet so far. But how "long term" are we talking here? "Surviving the death of the sun" long term?

quote:

Originally posted by Vector A Well, survival looks like a darn good bet so far. But how "long term" are we talking here? "Surviving the death of the sun" long term?

Well, surviving the death of the sun sure beats not surviving it.

Indeed!

So, what do you see as the greatest threats to long-term survival? I know you mentioned "suboptimal mortality" already, but could you make that more specific? Who should be dying that is not?

quote:

Originally posted by Vector A So, what do you see as the greatest threats to long-term survival? I know you mentioned "suboptimal mortality" already, but could you make that more specific? Who should be dying that is not?

Conversation veering to eugenics... 5.. 4.. 3..

quote:

Originally posted by Vector A So, what do you see as the greatest threats to long-term survival? I know you mentioned "suboptimal mortality" already, but could you make that more specific? Who should be dying that is not?

I can't answer that in a snarky, one-or-two sentence post. So... I'm just not going to.

Well, fine then!

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